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Boothbay Maine 1853 ship Aphrodite 1:96 Post 1 The beginning A friend has been rebuilding his Bluenose schooner in my shop for three years. The other day he came over with a broken-down old ship model given away by the Maine Maritime Museum. So it stayed on a shelf since last fall. Now that we are on a quest to build up models of the schooners and ships built in Boothbay, I got an idea. Do some research and come up with a Boothbay ship or bark that in a known scale would be the same size as this model. There is a wonderful book called Shipping days of Old Boothbay. It is available at the Boothbay Region Historical Society. Not only does is follow families that sailed out of the harbor it lists in several sections much about interesting ships, barks and schooners built here. On the chapter about barks there was one candidate that at 800 tons could have worked. It was however not typical. Of the 6 barks built in the main period of the 1850’s listed in the book 5 were all 400 tons or less. The Charles Lewis was 745 tons and built in 1875. She had a long life too…maybe next time On the chapter about ships, again there are about 6. The first one, built in 1853 was the Aphrodite. She was 680 tons and 147 long, 31 wide and 15 deeps. She was built by a well-known builder Stephen Sargent. She sailed far a way and then was lost off the Azores. Perfect size as we took the measurements and found a match with our derelict hull at 1:96 Next up is to find some design. I was very impressed years ago buying a book by William Crothers on Clipper ships. After a little search I found he published a book…American Built Packets and Freighters of the 1850’s How perfect!! Oops it was pricey, but the hull was free so why not. I am so glad I got it…wow what would you like to know. In the index they identify Alna a ship of the same size built in Maine in the same year. So why not that is my data base. So off we go. This will not be a long build but a fun learning experience. We shall reuse what we can, but I suspect most above the deck will be new. Unfortunately, we forgot to take a picture of as is. Trust me it was ugly. The hull is a carved soft wood with minor applications. The cabins were just blocking and the rails 1/8th thick, so as the queen said, off with their heads. Here you see the dead eyes wire loops were wrapped with like No 17 brads. The figure head was a large clown…yes a clown… goneso. The record of Alna only listed the carved and gilded Billethead. so I will thicken the stem to form a billet and add some stick on tape with gold filligree The stern was sort of round. Looking through Crother's book, there is a rounded stern that was typical of the era and listed to be on Alna. Also there was no poop deck. So after days of reading and thinking, we are adding a ½ poop deck based on Crothers findings. Here we have removed most everything and are cleaning up an under-deck. You can see the crudeness of the remaining bow and taft rails removed after this photo Here a little of the glazing putty to try to smooth out an under deck. there are at least 40 toothpick tips glued into old large brad holes to be sanded as well. When I laid out Alna masts, two matched perfectly an the mizzen within a 1/16. adding the half poop pushes the hole aft so we match there too. the fore deck extends aft and that is good because we gain an overhang All for now jon
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